Out Beyond Ideas || Summons

Nearly always rhythmical with typical stanzas and lines, poems are there to convey raw emotion. Sometimes so raw in conveyance that even the poet that wrote it is at a loss for words when asked to comment on the meaning of the literary beauty. Poems are a force of nature, a gust of wind that can take breaths away or can choke an audience through usage of a single word. Therefore it is that very characteristic that, to me, creates poetry. Undeniably raw emotion coupled with a poem’s unique infrastructure results in a “snowflake-esque” event, each and every one poem differ in character, but all output great emotion and purpose. Summons by Robert Francis and Out Beyond Ideas by Mewlana Rumi both go beyond the literal, conveying a message behind a well constructed structure.

Talking about increasing one's awareness beyond the comfort zone, Robert Francis heavily mentions sleep within the play to symbolize one’s unwillingness to be self aware. Summons stresses the need for enlightenment and therefore, awareness to the world around. The narrator is asking for knowledge, he “doesn’t want to go to sleep,” but rather wants someone to “stomp on the floor” and to “bang on the door.” Without being aware, without the actions taken, people will go to sleep never noticing the beauty of the world, the power of knowledge, or the chaos that embodies the world. It is essential, as the poem stresses, to keep those unaware to BE aware. It does only take a single match to start a wildfire.

Out Beyond Ideas by Mewlana Rumi signifies a place, figuratively or literally, where the wrong doings and right doings aren’t placed within two ends of a line, but rather a grayscale of different tones. Unlike the elevated tone of Summons by Francis, Out Beyond Ideas has a tone that is both reflective and contemplative. The author is essentially thinking of an issue that places the audience unto a place that places them at the sidelines, thus differing from the approach implied in Francis’s Summons. Instead of “banging on the door,” rushing head first, to keep aware, Rumi’s approach is to put yourself on the sidelines. Pause, breathe deeply, and reflect on your life as the chaos rumbles on.

Both poems construct the same message of self-evaluation, but do so in different approaches. It is the “snowflake-esque” event, two different roads converging unto the same path.